Edwin Evers is fishing MLF in 2019

Just read a post on FB from EE and he has committed to MLF in 2019. Wonder who else will jump to MLF from BASS.

Well.....I'm sure all the BPS Nitro guys will switch.

Timmy Horton as well

Randy Flowers is also

Yep along with every one of the original MLF guys.

Others will be announcing within the next few days. I imagine all the guys listed with angler profiles on the MLF website.

If they replaced Marty with Randy Flowers, they would break fishing world wide open #stroke1

That’s no surprise. He is one of JM boys.

That's unfortunate. Can't believe he's leaving without an AOY to his name. Not gonna be the same without some of these big names in the Classic. What sounds better...MLF Cup Champion or Bassmaster Classic Champ? It's always gonna be the Classic Champ.

No confirmation, but Timmy Horton, in his FB live announcement alluded to some other guys who will be leaving. When he was asked if he was sad to never fish the Classic again, he said roughly “fishing against the best is what I want to do. The Classic is a great tournament, but any time I’m fishing against Justin Lucas, Greg Hackney, Edwin Evers and Andy Montgomery, I’m doing that.”

Andy Montgomery is one of the best. Now thats breaking news. Funny he mentioned that name and not KVD. He fished against the best this year. Didn't go so well

I'm guessing almost all of the invited Elite Series pros will make the switch. Smart move on their part. And you can bet KVD is one of them.

Add Zack Birge to the list of MLF guys now.

Saw a post from Jason Lambert last night that led me to believe he might have gotten an invite and be making the switch also.

A decent group of BASS guys won’t make the change. I think probably 50 or so will move. There are a couple of big names staying though.

Big names who turned down their BPT invitations?

Yes

The Bass Pro Tour Championship is the new Classic... pays twice as much $$ too! If a guy were lucky enough to win the BPT Championship and World Championship the winnings would total over $1 million for a single season. The Bassmaster what?

That's surprising to me. I guess BASS calling around and offering some guys an additional $50k to stay worked for some.

They offered it to everyone who is currently qualified for the 2019 season.

Marty Robinson to MLF PBT


Also Alton Jones Sr says he's announcing tonight on FB

AJJ will definitely be going. Anyone who says they’re “announcing”, my money says that they’re leaving. No one who stays with BASS swill be announcing that... they’ll just... do it

I thought it was interesting that Brandon Palanuik said he hoped to be there weighing in for the next 20 years. I'm also interested to see what Swindle does, to my knowledge he doesn't fish MLF currently.

I think Swindle fished some MLF Selects but your right I don't recall him on any recent shows.

I’ll be shocked if either of those guys leave

So I saw they are going to announce the schedule. If so, it wont be a surprise to the anglers anymore. Will the rules be changing? I cant wait to see how they handle spectator boats on small waters. (Guarantee the anglers loved the no spectators in MLF, will they enjoy it as much with spectator boats?)
Can you imagine holding it in East Texas (Naconiche) again and announcing the tournament ahead of time. The spectators alone would clog the lake.

Or will they continue to be secretive or only fish weekdays and cut the in-person contact to anglers out? What other sport do you have the access to Pro's? None, and thats something that makes this one so great.

So many questions and unknowns that I think its a bit early to planning BASS and FLW funerals.

http://www.majorleaguefishing.com/angler-listing?listing-id=5463

I suspect all of these guys are going.

That would be 50 of the 80 there if they all went full time

2 different formats.

BPT will be announced locations that, according to Horton, will have spectator involvement on site after the competition each day. 2 days of practice before competition days.

MLF Cup will retain the current format. No practice, smaller un-announced lakes, etc

Skeet will be announcing at 11am this morning.

Yes sir, they all gone except for Palaniuk maybe, BASS will probably pay some of their poster boys that have recently won the classic or aoy to stay, like Swindle, Jodan Lee, Lucas. Alton Jones is supposed to announce going to MLF later today I heard.

Skeet is switching too

I do like how ESPN produces the elite series, will the new circuit be on outdoor channel only? How will i watch them? I do not have cable.

Skeet just announced on FB

What’s crazy, is if you look at cable, membership is trending downward. People are going to Netflix/Hulu type programming. Gonna be interesting to see how their viewership grows when people quit buying packages programming like that. If they don’t hit it while their scrolling through their 1200 channels, might hurt it. Out of sight, out of mind.

Is it confirmed that they cant fish MLF and BASS? Because there is a lot of BASS pro's (that fish MLF) still talking about fishing the Classic.

Lambert is in.

I know it's good for the pros, but it sure is watering down the sport having them spread across 3 tours.

Yes, the new MLF tour has 14 events next year, its said it would be logistically impossible to fish MLF/BASS or MLF/FLW, and BASS/FLW have 3 tournaments scheduled on the same weekend so thats not happening either but that was done on purpose because BASS didn't want guys fishing FLW on the side, BASS's shenanigans drove this new tour to fruition.

Add Chris Lane to the MLF
https://www.facebook.com/chrislanefishing/

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong..they qualified for the Classic last year, so even those guys leaving BASS should still be fishing one more Classic??

Edwin and Skeet both said in their releases that they were planning on fishing the Classic. Who wouldn't? $300,000 in prize money alone for a reduced-field event.

Is it bad to root for the non-MLF guys to win the Classic?

The only guys committed publicly so far are the guys MLF already has on their angler roster. They have 50 guys on there. If they all accepts, which I'm sure they will, that leaves 30 open spots. Those are the guys I'm interested in. The normal MLF pros that's a no brainer

There will be a few MLF guys who don’t jump ship from BASS

I'm sure there will be. Now Alton Jr has committed to MLF. So there is 1 of the 30 not on the website

Looks like Hack has committed.

Alton Jones just committed to MLF on FB live for 2019-2021

Edwin Evers, KVD, Greg Hackney, and Alton Jones are my favorite pros to watch....
Guess I know what I'll be watching.

It's not going to be the Top 80 bass anglers in the world. Already a couple committed who aren't in the top 80. Kelly Jordan isn't even in the top 80 on the Elite Series. However he has some type of stake in the MLF. It will be interesting if done of the FLW hammers like Thrift, Rose and Morgan come over.

There's gonna be over 800 hours of TV coverage/live stream of MLF compared to the 60ish hours that BASS just put out this year- per Alton Jones. It makes it very easy to switch and watch. This won't dilute the sport by a long shot, if anything its going to put it in the spotlight and make it more popular than ever before. They were even talking about sponsors that aren't even close to being related in anyway wanting to sponsor just to get air time on TV. This will bring plenty of money in and pay these guys as well as trickle down and make the sport better.

BASS said they are cutting down the field to only let 80 to fish the elite series next year. Down from 110, so there is 30 for MLF

Boyd Duckett’s Bass Zone interview was pretty interesting. The one takeaway I got from it of it is anglers ar going t make more money which is nice. Unfortunately, he also said that would be driven by more fisherman.... Specifically, double the fisherman. I hope they have a plan that includes teaching people about respecting others on the water and better fish care. The number of folks fishing the bent pole pattern these days is really large. As a weekend warrior I can’t imagine twice as many boats on the water.

A few is 3. And if anyone got invited to MLF, and turned it down I sure hope they have a guarantee of payouts with a reduced field below 80 next year on BASS. The 10 FLW guys invited will go. And who would take a similar 1 year payout vs. a 3 year? BASS only taking 11 from Opens, from print to date. They could go down Open field but that many guys can’t get $ in time. The only way they could fill a field is to scratch everything and change what they set as an Elite standard and poach FLW guys for a year. Sponsor dollars are everything... to the angler and organization. Only 1 has been doing press releases of adding sponsors. BASS won’t lay down but financially impossible to sustain. Kills me to see young FLW guys complaining about payouts before it all shakes out. How do they know it won’t change 2020, and FLW is farm league announced by end of year. If it were me, all I would say is I hope to contribute to the sport in a similar way one day, and fish Opens to keep the avenue open. BASS will change what they announced last week.

BASS is on the ropes, FLW is positioned very well in this, the young guys need to bite their tongues when this all shakes out FLW stands to gain the most possibly, I think there could be an alliance with MLF in the works. The gem FLW has is the the best grass roots connection.

FLW Could continue its roll as the AAA affiliate to BASS and now MLF.